The Road
by Captain Zippy
Summary: An average man, not a fighter. A coward, not a hero. Thrust into an alien land with nothing but the clothes on his back and hope for a future.
1. Civilian

"RUN YOU COWARD. RUN LIKE YOU ALWAYS HAVE!" Vasili tried his best to ignore the words, trying to ignore the hate and spite that they carried. His old friends screamed at him as his boots made loud tapping noises on the concrete road, his sunrise suit causing a shuffling noise as the fabrics rubbed together. In the distance, he heard more shouts from foreign sources, then the night sky filled with gun fire. The screams of hate at him dissolved into the yells of a war, a few bullets made their way to him but all of them missed. His breath coming out ragged and shallow, he trekked forward.

When he was confident he was a good few miles away, he let his legs fall beneath him and he fell to the ground. He did a short roll and then laid there in the middle of the road, ignoring the danger that accompanied his rest. He looked over at his PDA, the contacts screen showed there was no one near him. His Geiger meter was calm and there were no anomaly's to be seen, he was confident nothing was coming at him at the moment and sighed.

Suddenly, all of his hopes melted away into fear as he heard foot steps moving down the road, then a long groan of "Vassillliiii..."

Three months ago.

Some where in Russia.

Vasili walked into the travel agents office, he looked around curiously, his eyes slightly panicked and the fear obvious on his face. Easy listening music filled the room at a low volume and across from the door, a well dressed man sat at an old table. A nice chair across from him and a lap top turned on, on his desk. He looked up to see Vasili and motioned to the chair before going back down to his computer, tapping in some things.

Vasili sat down, shaking slightly from the waves of anxiety that assailed him with monster truck force. The man pushed the laptop closed and then leaned into the table, flashing him an obviously fake, pearl white smile.

"Hello mister... Romanov, what do you need today?" He said, looking at a paper that sat on the table. Vasili gulped and leaned in as well, hoping this would work.

"I... I need a trip to a special place. It needs to be one way. I do not think I will come back." The mans brow raised slightly in mock confusion. Vasili did not notice it and continued on.

"I... I want to get past the Ukrainian military and into the zone of alienation. Chernobyl." The blood left his face as he imagined all the possible outcomes, most ending with him in a jail cell for stalking and looting. However, the agent kept his smile on and pushed the lap top open.

"Well Mr. Romanov, it is going to co-" Vasili quickly reached into the pocket of his old trench coat, he found what he was looking for and pulled it out. He laid the money on the table in front of him, there were sixty-five hundred thousand rubles in a stack.

"All my life savings, all my insurance, loans from loan sharks and tons of favors. Please tell me this covers it."

The mans smile faded and he took the money, he hated to be interrupted. He quickly sifted through the bills, making sure they were all there and all real. Satisfied, he pocketed them and smiled again, looking up.

"This can cover a decent bribe to get you into the zone, my own expenses, food and a bed roll. However, I can not get you to safety and I can not get you armed with this much." Vasili shrunk a bit, he had no more money to spare and his only way in was to go without a gun, which he doubt he could survive with. He quickly tried to reason with him.

"Mother of god man please! I can not go there without a-" he was quickly cut off by the agent whose face was now in a sneer.

"You are lucky I do not throw your bum ass into the street, now fucking pay up or get out." Vasili put his head into his palms, he could either walk away humiliated with no money and a decent chance of being killed by loan sharks or he could stumble around the zone with no gun, let alone knowledge of how to use one. He sighed and straightened his back, trying to look reasonable.

"Fine, just get me there. Fine."

The agent smiled with those big, fake, pearls.

"I am glad we could reach an agreement mister Romanov."


	2. The Disks of Horrible Death

Two soldiers stood next to the fence, nervously looking around. The man, an employee of the agent, who had led him here was no where to be seen. Vasili assumed he had ran off when he walked up towards the fence. Slowly he approached the two men, his back pack felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and the tan colored jacket the agent had gotten him as well was pressing in on him, a size too tight.

One of the men approached he and shoved him towards the fence.

"Get in there already stalker, we do not want to be here when you get killed." Vasili wanted to whimper at the words but refrained. Trying his best to look strong, the other one leaned down and grabbed the bottom of the fence, the electricity having been turned off for this. Grunting, he pulled the chain link up just enough for Vasili to crawl under.

Vasili took a breath bekore looking at the outside world for the last time. For a moment he thought about everything he was losing, but quickly decided against going back. It was too late now, he chose this for himself. Vasili got on his knees and carefully slid beneath the fence, head first, then body. He almost pulled out his leg when he heard a shout over one of the soldiers radios,

_"Tarkov, Arden, where the hell are you two lazy fucks." _The soldiers looked at each other, eyes wide, before running off. Without anyone to hold it up, the fence flew down and cut through his ankle, the light metal ripping into his flesh and causing blood to stain the jeans he had been given. Vasili screamed from the pain, a pain he had never felt before. His first taste of the zone.

Vasili yanked with all of his might, trying to free his leg but only felt his skin tearing as the fence dug deeper with his movement. Tears streamed down his eyes as he stopped holding himself up, falling onto his stomach and groaning. Vasili buried his head in the dirt, wishing he had rethought all of this. Cursing the people that put him here who forced him into this situation, cursing the soldiers for just leaving him and cursing himself for thinking he was up for things like this.

Vasili took a very deep breath and closed his eyes, thinking hard.

_"What would a stalker do."_ Is all he thought, carefully, trying to push away the pain, he got on his elbows. Then ever so slowly, he twisted his body to get on his back, his leg screaming in the pain of medal sliding against it. Vasili dug both of his hands into the dirt, and thought,

_"You are a stalker now god damn it, a STALKER, stop whining over pain you wimp. STOP IT RIGHT NOW."_

Vasili's eyes widened as he screamed, pushing backwards with all his might, his leg scraped from under the fence. Finally his boot pulled itself out, Vasili fell back from the pain. Groaning, he rolled to his side, he knew for a fact he would not be running on that. Vasili rolled onto his chest to push himself up but realized his mistake too late.

Remembering he was on a hill side, Vasili made the loudest curse possible before rolling down the hill, mud and dirt splattering over him while his back backs strap tore as the sack went tumbling down after him. Any attempt to grab onto something ended poorly as the only things he could grab were loose clumbs of soil and sticks.

When he hit the ground with a THUMP, he did not realize he had been screaming, but soon enough he was as silent as a body at the base of the hill. Vasili sat there for a moment before carefully helping himself up, blood pouring down his leg and other places where branches and twigs had cut and scraped him, even through the nice jacket he had.

He gulped and looked around for the pack, finally spotting the bag of sleeping equipment and some food he was able to pack, he took a tentative step towards it. Still dizzy from the fall. He almost finished his step when he looked down and screamed, falling backwards as fast as he could. Vasili shook his head to clear his eyes, now looking around as best he could, he noticed the _hundreds_ of land mines dug halfway into the ground.

Cursing every god he could think of, Vasili once again stood up, making sure to step as far away from any piece of metal he could see, he maneuvered his way to the back pack.

Finding the strap torn, he decided to suck it up and tie it into a knot before slinging it over his shoulder. Vasili then began the slow and _horrifying _journey of pushing his way past every single one of the disks of death. A single wrong step, or even an accidental kick of a rock would end in his immediately painful demise.

Drips of sweat poured down his head, he heard the zone was a cold place, but right now it seemed as if he was in an inferno. Every single one of his steps sounded like an explosion, a twitch going through his body whenever he stepped on an old can or another piece of litter, expecting the trash to violently explode.

When he realized the rest of the mines were cleared, that he was free, he remembered to breath. Gasping for breath, Vasili stumbled foward, his jacket soaked in sweat and his leg screaming in pain. Even through all of this, the pain and anger and fear, Vasili had to smile. He acted like a stalker there, maybe he had a chance of surviving.

Based purely on memory, Vasili slowly walked to where he hoped was a road, and thus people to help him.


	3. Bandits, Bodies and Broken Things

Vasili stumbled on. Glancing at his watch, it had been four hours since his bout with the land mines. He had seen plenty of tumbled over buildings, cars that had been thrown about like toys. The occasional burned out husk of an old APC or helicopter sat on top of the crests of distant hills, yet he had found nothing alive. The blood loss had caused Vasili's vision to begin to blur and fade, he slowly became less aware of his surrounding, zoning in and out. His brain suddenly snapped to attention when his boot swung into something hard, suddenly off balance, Vasili fell face first into the hard dirt, shouting a curse. Once he calmed down, he groaned, and then gathered himself to look at what he tripped on.

He wiped the dirt off his face and looked down, but what he saw almost made him fall back down. For the first time in his life, Vasili was staring into the glazed over eyes of a dead man. Vasili took a few steps back, shaking a bit from fear.

_"Oh my god he is dead, oh my god he is dead, oh my god he is dead." _Is all Vasili could think as he stared at the dead man.

_"Who was he, I need to find out, tell the family, find who did this, oh god I can not do this." _Vasili was looking around constantly, trying to figure out what to do. Finally he got into his stalker mentality, trying his best to act like a veteran, praying what he was doing was smart.

Hesitantly, Vasili made steps toward the man, at first only baby ones, but eventually these turned into gradual steps until he found himself standing right in front of him. Taking a deep breath, he got to a knee, looking over the body. The man was lightly clothed, a dark jacket kept him warm but was pushed into him by a tight Kevlar vest. His skin was a grayish color and, to Vasili's horror, an eye and half the face had been torn off by birds, blemishing his otherwise handsome features.

But when he looked back at the chest, Vasili found himself puking to the side. He carefully looked back over at the horrible wound.

The mans body was stained in blood, his neck was half gone, a circular hole having taken residence. Long dried blood staining his skin, but his stomach was simply... gone. A hole had been torn through the Kevlar, old chunks of meat hung out of the crevice, a swarm flies having long marked the area as their home. Vasili quickly turned his head to puke again, the rest of the small meal he had before entering the zone leaving his body. Then suddenly the worst part hit him. The _smell._ Vasili found himself gagging as the fumes filled his nostrils, the smell of a long dead corpse. Tears streamed down his eyes as he constantly told himself to be a stalker. Vasili stuffed his hands into the dead mans open pockets. Finally, he grasped a different object in both hands. Pulling them out quickly before scrambling away from the corpse to see what they were.

One of them was an old PDA, the screen cracked slightly and the battery long gone. The other was an oddly smooth object, a cone and then what looked like a net pushed over the top in a dome. He felt an odd sensation as he held it and gulped, it was very nice to look at, but he would rather focus on getting away from whatever killed the man. Stuffing the things into the inner pockets of his jacket, Vasili began to walk off.

Vasili finally saw something that looked like it may offer shelter, an old farm house sat across dead farmland a mile away. Smiling widely, he began to walk as fast as he could with his leg in its condition. He made it half way to the field, thinking of making friends and getting a nice sleep and learning the ways of the zone in a way that was not first hand when he heard a loud crack from the farm house. The sound was immediately followed by the dirt in front of him exploding violently. Screaming, Vasili stumbled backwards, realized it was a gun shot, he turned and began to jog off. He walked right into the man who had been standing behind him, falling backwards with a gasp, he looked up.

He did not look very friendly, the first stalker he had seen had a sick smile on his face, an old and dirty ski mask and a stained khaki colored shirt. Making him look five times large was the dark trench coat that covered most of his body and the sides of his head. His legs were covered by old grey cargo pants, in his hand was a sawed off shotgun, pointed at Vasili's skull. Vasili cried out and raised his hand, realizing the man well intended to kill him.

Two other equally violent looking men walked up, the only things they all shared were dark trench coats and masks. One had one looked like an SMG and the other had a baseball bat. Hearing footsteps behind him, Vasili glanced back to see the final member of their gang come jogging up, a scoped rifle in his hand and a grin across his face. He was the only one with no mask.

"Some one is a far away from the camp." Joked the man with the bat, the others chuckled. The one with the shotgun shook his head at the joke, still smiling, before leaning down to get face to face with Vasili, the barrel of the gun pressing into the young stalkers chest.

"Now kid" Vasili could smell the alcohol on his breath, his teeth obviously not having been brushed well in weeks, "I think it is about time you handed over any artifacts you got before we turn you into a rookie stiff." Vasili shuddered, his eyes wide in fear as he tried to imagine what they could possibly want.

"W-what is an artifact?" Asked Vasili, looking between the three men. From behind, he heard the man with the rifle break out laughing, a high and light voice cracking through the air. The others smiled widely, besides the one with the gun, who straightened himself, his ugly head moving away from Vasili.

"That's cute punk, now last chance. Hand it over." The man spat.

"I swear to god I do not know! Please! I j-just go-" he never got to finish, the man with the shotgun, the obvious leader, sent a horrible stomp to his stomach. Vasili screamed as he heard a rib crack, the man sent another two stomped before shouting again.

"GIVE US THE FUCKING ARTIFACTS RIGHT NOW." Vasili shook at the words, crying from the pain in his chest. He began to huddle into a ball, feeling as if he was going to puke. The leader spat on him and looked at the man with the bat.

"Piggy, search him."

"With pleasure." The man said, his deep voice matching his large and slightly bloated frame. The man walked to face Vasili's back, then raised his foot and slammed the back of it into Vasilis chest. Vasili screamed in pain and fell onto his back, shaking from pain and tears. Without remorse, the man got down and tore open his jacket, reaching into the pockets and looking for anything he had. In the meantime, the man with the rifle slung the gun and took Vasili's pack, throwing his sleeping equipment away and setting aside his rations.

Finally, Piggy pulled out the strange object Vasili found on the dead man, grinning widely. The leader sneered at Vasili, snatching it out of Piggies hands.

"Well it seems the little fuck was hiding this from us." He said as he twisted the object in his hand. Vasili groaned and looked up, everything blury as tears covered his eyes. The man with the shotgun pushed in two shells and snapped barrel back up, taking aim. Each of them was looking down on him, none of them watching their backs. Vasili saw a strange shape begin to move up behind the man. The features becoming more distinct. Vaguely he made out a gas mask and the figure of a crawling man.

"Time to say goodbye you sack of shi-" the man jumped onto the leaders back, its bloody hands wrapping around his neck and pressing hard. The man let out a scream and stumbled back, firing the shotgun in surprise, the shells tearing the man with the SMG apart. The others screamed and raised their weapons as their leader stumbled back. Finally the man on his back pressed in hard enough, his fingers tearing through his neck and ripping into his windpipe. The leader let out a cry of pain before collapsing backwards, gurgling out blood. The other men opened fire, shouting in surprise, the man was too fast however, and was quickly pouncing on Piggy, ripping at his eyes.

Vasili may have been brand new to the zone, a coward, a regular person and not a stalker, and in massive amounts of pain but he was not stupid. Scrambling forward, gasping from the pain in his chest, he grabbed the 'artifact' from the leader and began to run as best he could. His run was slow and awkward, hunched over and making a slight jerking motion with every step, he made his way towards the farm house. Praying that he could find a road there. Behind him, he heard Piggy screaming and more gun shots.

The next five minutes were a blur. Vasili made his way to the house, constantly blacking out only to find himself lurching forward while still jogging a few moments later. Once he got to the barn, he began to walk, he still heard gun shots in the field. But they were very few and beginning to fade away.

Following a path leading off to the side, he found himself on an old and broken road, the path from the house leading to the side. Stumbling to the center, he smiled weakly and turned to the right, hoping to get as far from the house as possible.

He made it forty feet before he collapsed from the pain, the object fell from his hand and rolled a few feet down the road. Vasili crawled towards it, made a final reach and then blacked out. Fading back into consciousness what must of been a few hours later, as it was now pitch black, he heard some one ask if he was alright, before blacking out again.


	4. Sinova

Phasing in and out of consciousness, Vasili only recalled someone helping him walk down a road. When his eyes opened he saw a long and broken road, a slope to the side and lights in the distance, when they closed he saw home, he saw a small apartment in the urban sprawl of Moscow. His happy family and his happy self, he saw cars zooming to and fro and he saw people walking down the street. He zoomed out and saw all of Moscow, then all of Russia, then the world, then he was zooming in again but not towards his home but towards the Ukraine, towards the zone and then zooming right back into himself. This happened over and over again, until suddenly he was falling in his vision, he was falling and screaming.

Vasili hit the ground with a THUMP. Suddenly he was sitting up, gasping for air as sweat trickled down his brow. Looking around while gasping, the events coming back to him, he wondered if he was dead. If he was, than heaven was a small room with a dangling lamp and a single dirty bed that he had been sleeping in. His clothes were balled up in a corner but when he tried to sit up he gasped in the pain shooting through his ribs. Looking down, a bloody bandage covered his chest, some one must have treated him. But who?

Vasili fell back down and groaned from pain, some one must have heard him because soon after a man walked in, he had a green suit on with green kevlar over it. A hood surrounded a mask that reminded me of the one the man who saved him from the bandits was wearing. An old AK-47 was slung over his arm and bottles of whiskey clinked together on his belt, just next to a holster that had a revolver strapped in securely, his kevlar was covered in extra pockets he had sown in and they looked like they were filled.

"You took a lot of damage my fellow loner." He said, walking besides Vasili and bending his legs so that their bodies were even. When he got no response from the confused Vasili he went on,

"Me and my band were walking back to the camp when he heard gunshots and screaming, we ran down the road and found your sorry ass sprawled along the concrete, reaching for a jellyfish." He took a breath and wiped his hands, quickly continuing, "Brewer and Nikolai went off to the field to find the source, me and Nova then fixed your leg up." The man thought for a moment, trying to recall what happened, before going on. "We found three dead bandits and a snork filled with bullets. From the dirt, it looked like you had gotten your ass kicked. But anyway, I think it would be better if you told us how it went down."

Vasili sighed, he felt humiliated but decided that he owed this man at least a story. Vasili began to tell him all about the ass hole agent and his fall down the hill, both elicited a laugh from the man. Then he explained the landmine incident before going into detail on the dead man and the strange object, then how the bandits were killed by the man. Finally he ended with his stumbling onto the road.

The man nodded and rolled his shoulder, he thought a bit again and told him his name was Sinova, then asked for his.

"M-my name is Vasili." He told him, the stalker nodded again and reached up, pulling off his mask to show his dirty and ppale face, mud colored hair matted to his head and a scar blemishing his chin. His nose was long crooked from many fights and a smile was played across his face.

"Well Vasili, it looks like you gotta pay off your debt to me now, for all we did. We took the artifact you had and that paid the medical bill." He stood back up and reached into one of the pockets, sliding a 9mm handgun out. He pointed it at Vasili whose eyes widened in fear, but Sinova simply raised an eye brow and flipped the gun around, holding the barrel and pushing the grip towards Vasili.

"You can help us around, watch our backs with that gun and earn your own share of the loot for a few adventures, than you can leave if you want." Vasili smiled, genuinely happy for the first time in what felt like years. He gripped the pistol and pulled it while Sinova grabbed his shoulder and hoisted him up. "Calm down you big baby." He said as Vasili gasped from the pain in his chest. Walking to the side, he took Vasilis leather jacket and tossed it to him, then took a simple, light black scarf from his pocket and handed it to him.

"The zone gets cold as fuck, and it is sometimes better to conceal your face. Looks bad ass too, I reccomend wearing it." Vasili nodded and took his jacket, sliding his arms through the sleevs and buttoning it, he tooks the scarf and wrapped it around his neck, adjusting it so it covered most of his neck and draped down over the front of the jacket before pulling the hood up over his head. For the first time this gear felt like it fit, everything just seemed right. Vasili pulled on his jeans and grabbed a holster Sinova put on an end table next to the bed for him. Sliding it around his leg and then pushing the pistol is, Vasili smiled and looked up.

"Now that's a stalker." Said Sinova jokingly, pushing himself off the wall he had been leaning on while Vasili dressed. "Now come on, we should go make introductions with the rest of the team." Sinova walked up some stairs and slid his gas mask on, then he reached up and pushed open the cellar door with Vasili on his heels. Vasili looked up and covered his eyes, the light having not touched his skin for days. Temporarily blinded, Vasili walked into the zone.


	5. The Crew

**Note: In the road, I added locations as the Zone just seemed too small in the game and I am a hundred percent sure that if the GSC could have made it bigger they would have.**

The white light faded away and Vasili's eyes cleared, he heard the sound of crows squawking as they retreated from the opening door and Sinova's long strides outside. Vasili eagerly followed, looking around the area. It was definitely in the zone, mud puddles covering much of the ground and the only vegetating being dying trees and tall yellow grass. Looking behind him, he saw an old house, half of it gone but the cellar unscathed. The only other buildings were an equally old gas station down a hill about a hundred feet away. A road twisted on the base of the hill, past the gas station and into the distance. From the height he was at, he saw a small village and the military check point a few miles away, some small figures moved down the road toward the village. Even further in the distance, far away, he heard a scream or gun shot every now and then, but mostly he heard the distant echoes of a man on the megaphone at the checkpoint.

Sinova led him around the destroyed building, ducking over the caved in door frame and into the small living area. The room was the only one besides the kitchen right next to it that was not missing. In a dark corner sat a moldy couch, a large man with a goatee laying on it sleeping, a green vest like Sinova's hugged his body, under it was a brown coat, dark cargo pants covered his legs. A respirator and SMG leaning on the couch next to his head. The man snored loudly and audibly, his body shaking with every single snort. Sinova walked over and raised his leg, jabbing the mans stomach with his boot. The sleeping mans eyes shot open and he hopped up, reaching down for his rifle but when he realized nothing dangerous was happening he cursed at Sinova and sat back down.

Sinova laughed and said,

"Vasili, this is Brewer, Brewer, Vasili." Brewer grunted at him, leaning back on the couch and reaching down, sliding his respirator on and flipping his hood over his head. "Brewer and me go way back to our time back in the republic, he used to own a brewery. This man can make one hell of a good vodka if you get him the right stuff." Brewer nodded, obviously too tired to talk right now, he laid back down on the couch and stared at the ceiling, yawning in the mask.

By now two other men walked out, one of them was dressed in clothing just like Sinova, a white mask pressed into his face and his hood up. He had a shotgun slung over one shoulder and a backpack on the other. The other man was dressed in a leather jacket like Vasili's, except it what a white camouflage pattern. His hood was down and a ski mask was bunched up around the top of his head, concealing his hair. The man looking rather young and enthusiastic, laughing lines clearly visible in his face, he stared at Vasili curiously.

"Hey who is this guy?" Said the stalker, his youth springing out with every word. Sinova looked over and said mildly,

"It is the sack of meat who we have been lugging around for the past week, he just recovered."

_"An entire week."_ He thought to himself. _"Why would they risk themselves an entire week for me?"_ Brushing the thought away, he looked at Sinova, hoping he would be introduced. Sinova glanced over and got the message.

"Vasili, this is Nikolai-" he said, motioning at the man in leather, he then turned to the one suited up, "this one is Nova, he is the group cynical ass hole. Nova, Nikolai, this is Vasili, I offered to pay off his debt to us in exchange for some help." Nikolai smiled widely, walking over and patting Vasili on the back lightly.

"Glad to have another newbie with us man, now you get to be the runt." He said jokingly, Sinova walked over to a wall and leaned on it, crossing his arms and watching how they get along. Nova walked over too, but he gave off a hostile feeling and Vasili got the message that Nova did not want a new friend.

"Look at him, he looks starved, he is more green than fucking Nikolai and we just wasted god knows how much time of ours lugging him around." His voice was ripe with anger and cynicism, Nikolai snapped back,

"Hey come on man! We can always use a hand! He can cover our backs and everything, the company is good too!" Nova laughed, though there was no amusement in his voice.

"Company? What company is this fuck going to give us, more fodder to piss me off to hell with? Cover our backs? What is he going to scream and cry and lead mutants off after they suck up one of the bullets from his pea shooter?" Nova let the words sit in before walking up to Vasili, who had been standing still, staring straight ahead as his cheeks reddened.

"Jesus Christ do you even know how to use a gun?" He said into his face. Vasili felt like he was going to cry, in the corner of his eye he saw Nikolai rubbing his temples and Sinova shaking his head negatively. Nova took a breath, about to continue on when to everyone's surprise, a loud and burly voice cut through the room.

"Nova will you stop messing with the poor kid. You were no god damn prodigy when you were a rookie." Said Brewer, now standing with his arms crossed. Vasili got a good look at him now, Brewer was just over six foot seven, a giant in almost all regards. Vasili looked back at Nova who had turned around, Nova was trying to make himself look taller, his fists clenched at his sides.

"Do not get into this Brewer, I am making sure we do not get kil-"

"You are acting like some Duty ass hole Nova."

"Brewer shut-" Brewer stepped up to him, staring down at Nova as their chests began to press together. Nova seemed to shrink slightly.

"Nova, go back into the kitchen. Now." Vasili felt much better now, Nikolai had a slight smile but Sinova was leaning on the wall, hand on his holster and afraid of an escalation. Vasili looked back at Nova, with scrutiny now. Vasili realized he was not as large as he thought, Nova only made it to 5'10 with his back completely straight, almost a dwarf in comparison to Brewer. Even Nikolai was taller than him at 5'12.

Nova looked between the two, he stared at Vasili a long while and then backed away. Vasili could feel the anger, and he knew this was not over. Sinova pushed off the wall, shaking his head.

"Well that was Nova, he joined after me and Brewer, he is alright when he learns to trust you enough, but do not expect him to buddy up." Vasili sighed and looked over to the kitchen, through the door he saw Nova leaning over a sink, staring out a window and shaking his head slowly.

"What is his problem anyway?" He asked, hoping to keep his voice low enough to keep the conversation away from him. Brewer answered.

"Nova was a good friend of me and Sinova's, back then it was just us two, Nova would give us info on stashes he found at the bar as long as he got a small fraction of the cut. Nova was called goldie back then, since he had come into the zone with a bunch of gold coin family heirlooms to sell off for money." He tsked and glanced at the door way before continuing,

"Nova used to be a lot different in those days, you could see him standing on tables and leading bar songs a lot, sitting around with friends and joking. Him and his best friends, some stalkers named Dog, Yankee and Orphan used to travel around together. They were inseparable."

Brewer paused, shaking his head solemnly. Vasili saw Nova's fists clench on the edge of the counter when he overheard the names.

"What happened?" Asked Vasili, it was Sinova who answered now, for the first time he heard Sinova talk slowly and sadly, much different than his normally boisterous yet even voice.

"The four went out on a scavenging trip way up north, in the army warehouses. They found an urchin, the most expensive artifact we know of. It was amazing to find one there, as the warehouses are still fairly low on the danger level. The group cheered and began walking home." Sinova paused and Nikolai picked up the torch.

"They started walking home when suddenly they heard growling, everyone turned just in time to see Dog, who was in the back of the column, get tackled and mauled by a blood sucker. Big mutant with tentacles mouths that ripped you apart with its claws and drank your blood." Nikolai cracked his knuckles and went on.

"The group was too late, they killed the fucker but Dog was dying, his throat torn open by the mutant. Yankee put him out of his misery. They buried him on the side of the road, said some words and left some things on his grave in his memory before moving on. They would keep his memory alive by selling the artifact and spending it on the best guns and drink they ever had." Nikolai looked at the ceiling, a sad look on his face. "Half way to home... Orphan raised his gun and shot Yankee in the back. Nova asked the hell he was doing and he told him he was sorry, a mercenary boss was offering big money for an urchin. But he had to go alone and he needed the money for his family back home. He raised his rifle and shot Nova in the chest-"

He was cut off by Novas voice, the stalker standing in the door way now.

"I was rescued by some rookies passing through who brought me back to the bar to get patched up. I barely lived. I sat at the bar and then Brewer and Sinova walked in, I told them what happened and they insisted I come with them instead of drinking my self dead. The only condition was that when we found Orphan, whether he was in Duty or Freedom or he was alone or with an army."

He paused.

"I will get to kill the bastard myself."


	6. Cordon

The five of them had set out almost immediately.

Sinova had taken Nova aside and talked to him in a hushed voice, when they came back, Nova informed Vasili he would not betray him. Though if he so much as glanced at any of them with a gun out he would drop him in a heart beat. Vasili tried his best to take this positively and agreed. Afterwards, Sinova sat them all down to tell them an old contact sent him the location of a big stash of military equipment to the north, in an area called Garbage. He assured Vasili bandits would not hit a group their size, let alone as well armed as them and they had money to get past the military outpost at the bridge. Sinova wanted to get down to the village down the road to sell their loot or any items the loot replaced ASAP as he warned Vasili that the zone gets even more dangerous at night. Afterwards, they packed and walked down the hill, then a half mile until they hit the road. Once there the march had been silent except for Nikolai's voice, Sinova leading the way to the Garbage.

Nikolai was idly chatting to Vasili, whom had quickly learned that when Nikolai started talking it was completely impossible to stop him and long ago had stopped trying.

"So the story goes that he now has hair just like a tigers, cause it is white and-"

"Nikolai shut the hell up already we are at the outpost." Spat out Nova, Nikolai almost instantly piped down and looked forward, sliding his sawed off shotgun from a sling and holding it in his hands, his finger tapping the side. Vasili looked around and realized everyone but him had taken their weapons out and gulped, unbuttoning the holster and sliding out his own. A minute later, he realized why they had them out.

The outpost was large and intimidating, an ancient and broken train track on an equally broken bridge just above his head. A series of sandbag walls, camouflage netting, crates and soldiers kept the outpost amazingly secure and the bodies pushed to the sides of the road were proof of that. Vasili could count three soldiers crouched behind cover and aiming their rifles at their heads just from a glance, and guessed there to be at least two more some where. Vasili's eyes dotted around to each of the members of the group. Nova's face was impossible to see, though his hands were shaking from the tight grip on his shotgun which he told Vasili was called a SPAS 12. Brewer had the safety on his SMG, which Vasili had learnt was called the viper 5, flicked off.

Sinova had his AK out and slightly raised, the safety off as well. Sinova seemed the most calm of them all, but all the same his body radiated tension and fear. For a moment Vasili thought they were not allowed in and the soldiers would open fire any minute, but finally a soldier with a beret, his pistol in a holster on his hip, strolled out.

"What do you want Cross." He said to Sinova, Vasili's eye brow raised questionably.

"I told you already, it is Sinova now, and you know perfectly well what I want." Sinova let go of the the rifles barrel and stuffed his hand into his pocket. He reached around and finally pulled out a banded stack of rubles. He tossed it to the soldier and gripped his gun again.

"I would have more respect if I was you, you might not make it out of the zone alive like that."

"I do not plan on it." Said Sinova, Vasili was wondering what part of what the soldier said that Sinova did not plan on when Sinova walked past the officer, the others followed him carefully. Vasili stood there for a moment, briefly alone, before he began to speed walk after them. Before he got to pass the dark and angry eyes of the soldier, the mans hand shot out and smacked him on the chest, shoving him back with a gasp from Vasili. Vasili saw Sinova suddenly stop with the sound of the smack and the group did the same, Nikolai and Brewer turned around and Nova glanced over.

"New blood..." said the soldier in Vasili's face, Vasili shrunk in front of him, the soldier flashed him an obviously fake smile and Vasili was suddenly back in the travel agents office. A little man with no idea of what he was doing or friends to help him, with a giant looming down on him.

"I would suggest you back off, right now, major." Said Sinova, still not turning around. His voice was laced with distaste and anger, more so than ever.

"You know what? I am sick of your attitude Cross. Men... kill-" he did not get to finish his sentence. A bullet went whizzing from the bushes around an old saw mill and tore into the train cart next to the soldier. He let out a loud curse and ducked down behind a sand bag wall. Vasili looked back and saw men in trench coats firing from the bushes.

"RUN DAMN IT." Screamed Sinova as everyone at the outpost scrambled. Vasili went running as fast as he could, hoping to catch up with the group when a soldier ran up to him, hoping to use his rifle like a club at his head. Vasili yelped and dived down, doing a roll and tumbling down the sloped road. He looked up to see Nova run up to him, yank his arm and pull him up with him.

"RUN DUMB ASS." He yelled and Vasili found himself complying. Nova raised the shotgun and blew the side off a soldier who had his gun aimed at the two and immediately afterwards dashed after Vasili.

After what felt like an hour, he and Nova had caught up with the others. Brewer and Nikolai were panting for air behind an over turned log, Sinova was on his chest next to them, rifle aimed at the road they came running up and making sure they were not followed. The shots had finally ended and any other noises from the outpost faded out long ago. At the sight of the two, Sinova let out a sigh of relief and stood, brushing himself off. Brewer and Nikolai looked over to see the two approaching and got up themselves, stretching their muscles and checking their weapons.

"Well that was a nice time." Chuckles Sinova as Nova passed them both to go talk to the others.

"You did not handle yourself too bad kid, I saw you dodge that grunt. You ain't useless." He patted him on the back and looked around. "Right, well it has been a bit since we left, your leg is going to start flaring up soon but Nova has a few spare pain killers." Nova grunted in distaste. Sliding the bag off his back and searching for it. "After we get you G to G we will get moving to the Garbage. She ain't too far now.

Vasili nodded and plopped down onto the log, sighing as, as if on queue, his leg began to throb painfully where the fence had dug in a week before.

"I still do not believe you got yourself that injured by playing with a fence." Muttered Nova as he walked over, he handed Vasili two pain killers and went back to his bag, zipping it up before slinging it over his shoulder. Brewer and Nikolai were sharing a flask of vodka and idly exchanging conversation while Vasili and Nova took a breath. After a few minutes, Sinova cracked his knuckles and sat up.

"Right now if we get moving now and everything goes well we just might make it back in time with the loot. Let's move people." He called as he jogged down the hill they had been on and down onto the road. The others followed except for Vasili.

Vasili sat there on the log, thinking hard about what had happened so far, how he acted, what he could do better. If Sinova told him he had done fine than maybe he had, the thought brought a smile to his face and Vasili pushed on his thighs, getting up and then jogging down the hill after the group.

They all passed through the gate to Garbage, Nikolai fell behind with Vasili and the day went full circle.


	7. The Hole: Part One

The group all stood in front of a dark and dreary tunnel. Their adventure had been relatively tame after the confrontation with the military and Vasili was more than glad about that. Sinova had more than proved a competent guide and had moved them around two groups of bandits and a pack of mutant dogs. Vasili looked down into the dark expanse, the musky smell floating from out the tunnel was killing him and he decided to raise his scarf around his lower face, Nikolai did the same with his ski mask, praying that it may offer them some small protection against the smell. Once everyone was confident that they were prepared to go into the hole, an old concrete tunnel located far away, on the very edges of the Garbage, the building that once held it long gone, Sinova told them all to get going and thus they slowly advanced down into the dark.

All that Vasili had heard about the place is it used to be a bunker, but the building collapsed even before the Chernobyl incident and was removed long ago. They had covered up the entrance but it was blown off during the second event. This just left an ominous concrete stair well in the ground for them to walk down. Off the bat he could see almost no one has been here, signs of life were nearly zero and signs of any activity previous to them coming here were equally low. Each of the lights on the ceiling had long gone out and their only source of light once they left the stairwell were the flash lights mounted under the barrel of Sinova's and Nova's weapons. The twin beams of light had trouble piercing the heavy darkness, it almost seemed unnatural how dark it was.

They were now in some sort of main room. The room was a medium sized concrete cube, almost nothing unique about it besides some crates and barrels stacked in a corner. In front of them was a massive door, going above their heads and being able to fit all of them in it at the same time comfortably. The door frame was rusted steel and the door was dangling down, leaving just enough room for them to duck through., slightly slanted and looking like it would collapse at any moment. To the left and right were smaller versions, for one person to go into. One of them had several crates blocking it, the other had long collapsed, rubble spilling into the main room from it. A single skeletal hand was poking out from under the debris.

"S-so I heard this p-place is filled with g-ghosts..." muttered Nikolai, obviously unnerved by the bunker. Vasili looked over and tried to say,

"G-ghosts are not really Nikolai, don't worry." But he did not feel like he believed the words. Every day of his life he had thought ghosts were the brain child of an over active imagination, but in this place? If any place had a ghost, it would be here.

"Cut the crap you two, we are going to get the stuff and go, kapeesh?" Said Sinova, Brewer was the last to speak.

"Motka Bozi" he muttered in a language Vasili in a language he did not know. Sinova waved at him to keep quiet and then walked to the large door.

"Cover me." He cut before getting to a knee and pushing himself under with a duck of the head. Afterwards, Brewer, Vasili, Nikolai and finally Nova went until they found themselves in a large storage room.

"This is where he said it would be." Said Sinova. The room was very large, probably half of a soccer field. In front of them, the ground stayed even and flat but to their sides it sloped up and the area on top of the slopes were covered in shelves, crates, barrels and other things. Many of the crates were broken open, looted long ago. The roof was high enough up that they could not see it in the dark, even when pointing up with the lights. When Nikolai coughed, his voice echoed across the room several times before stopping.

Sinova led them down the straight path, occasionally he would hoist the rifle over his shoulder and check his PDA for the location of the stash. The light from the device did not seem to add any illumination to the path and Vasili was constantly awaiting for him to bring his rifle to bear again whenever he did the action. Vasili noticed the path had been cleared, crates were pushed to the side and oddly enough, the dust that covered the rest of the building did not cover the paths they were pushed. He brought it up and Sinova paused the group to check.

"You are right newbie." He muttered, getting on a knee and wiping a finger on the path. No dust came up.

"Some one was here, recently." Muttered Nova, swinging his SPAS 12 around the elevated areas, trying to look for something to shoot at. Vasili raised his pistol as well, his fear of ghosts melted away to his fear of getting shot to death.

"This could not be coincidence. Almost no one knows of this place, any scavengers would be here weeks after each other." Said Brewer, his voice faster than usual.

"Shit fuck the stash this has to be a set up, I am not risking it let's-" Sinova almost finished the sentence when they heard a crashing noise, looking behind them they saw the door slam down and dust to go flying. Two crates toppled from either side of the slope and smashed together at the bottom, blocking the path.  
>"SHIT!" Screamed Nikolai, he began shooting at where the crates were previously, hoping to kill whatever pushed them.<p>

"STOP SCREAMING AND FIND A WAY OUT." Yelled at Sinova at them, sprinting down the path towards a door at the very end. Once the team made it, huffing from lack of breath, the door slammed shut like the others. Brewer cursed in the foreign language again, but Vasili tried his best to look around.

The slopes stopped before the wall, making a path to their left and right. The door on the left was on one hinge, on the other side was some sort of anomaly. The other door was shut and looked like it was locked. Sinova motioned them towards that door and they ran over, Brewer began trying to kick it to no avail.

"Nikolai, open that damn door!" He shouted, before motioning for the rest to cover him. Nikolai nodded and ran to a control panel next to the door, popping it open with a smack of his pistol and tampering with the series of wires inside of it. The rest of the team spread out along the path, Vasili was the farthest out, leaning against the wall and aiming towards the path, he tried his best to aim but fear and a lack of experience made his gun shake erratically. Somewhere on the elevated area, he heard something screeching.

"WATCH OUT." Screamed Brewer, Vasili had a moment to look up and see the very large crate teetering off the edge of the concrete, he briefly screamed before Sinova grabbed both of his arms and pulled him back, throwing both of them backwards and narrowly away from the collapsing crate.

"Any day now Nikolai!" Shouted Sinova, getting up and brushing himself off before running to the fallen crate and hugging it for cover.

"I AM DOING A JOB HERE I AM BUSY." Screamed back Nikolai in a panic, still working with the panel. Suddenly, a new voice filled the room. It had an American accent and Vasili placed it to up on the raised area.

"Fuck it just shoot the bastards, we will find the PDA later." Sinova looked up and muttered a curse. He unbuttoned one of his pockets and stuffed a hand in, before pulling out a hand grenade. Dropping his rifle, he took hold of the pin and pegged it up there. It made a pinging noise and they heard some one scream a curse in English before the grenade made a loud BOOM, a man went flying off the ledge, smacking into the wall and falling down with an UMF. He had a blue jump suit on, with a gas mask and a dark grey tactical vest.

"Merc's?" Gasped Nova, backing away from the body. They heard a flurry of footsteps above them when suddenly the door slid open. Nikolai cheered and ran in, followed by the rest of the group. Sinova was the last in, diving in right before a bullet smacked into where he just was. Nikolai looked at the panel on this side and popped it open as well, cutting two wires, he watched the door slam shut just as two more mercenaries hopped from the ledge.

"Now to find a way the hell out of here." Muttered Vasili.


	8. The Hole: Part Two

They were surprised to find some small formed of lighting in the room. The mercenaries must have been using it for some sort of outpost because there was an old floodlight in one corner, the light penetrating the dark in most of the small concrete room. The only thing other than the light and the door they went through was an open door frame to the right side of them, leading to a hallway with another floodlight at a corner down about thirty feet; its door had been knocked off long ago, the slab of metal laying on the ground useless and covered in dust. Once the group saw the very welcomed light, they had flicked off their flashlights and got to their business.

The group were all doing things that reflected their personality Vasili observed quietly in the corner. Nikolai was hunched over in front of the door, his knees were pushed up to his chest and he was hugging them defensively muttering curses and praying to various deities; his ski mask was dark from sweat and his shotgun was laying next to him. Brewer was leaning on a wall nonchalantly, his respirator was in one hand and a flask of whiskey in the other. Brewer seemed completely calm; bobbing his head to some tune, Vasili wondered if he even knew what was going on.

Nova was leaning out a door way on one side of the room, his SPAS was pointed out into the hallway. Vasili could hear hushed curses under his gas mask, his hands trembled slightly from what Vasili briefly thought was fear, but from what he had seen of Nova it was more than likely simply anxiousness to begin shooting back at whoever wanted them dead. Sinova was pacing the room, his rifle was in one hand and the PDA in the other, his gas mask was dangling on his neck by a strap and his handsome face looked thoroughly pissed off. Sweat covered his face, though Vasili imagined that it was more from the light mask he wore than anything else; those types of masks were old and he wondered why he even wore it.

Nikolai slowly calmed down and looked up to Sinova, his bottom lip was pushed out and it made it look like he was pouting, Nikolai took a moment and then asked Sinova.

"Hey Sinova... Are you scared?" Sinova stopped, his face never left the screen of his PDA and his expression had not changed at all. Brewer looked over and Nova risked a glance back before watching the hall again. Vasili's eyebrow raised, it was a curious question and with Sinova's odd nature he was probably going to get an even more curious answer.

"Only a fool would not be scared of a small army of heavily armed men having you outgunned and out manned in a dark and dreary bunker with presumably no way out; a smart man is some one who tries to find a way out of it." Said Sinova before he began his pace again, Nikolai nodded slowly, contemplating what was said. Nova looked back once again, this time longer, but he sighed and turned back to the hallway, no longer cursing; Vasili was the next to speak up.

"Nikolai, how did you know how to open the door?" It was Brewer who answered.

"Nikolai is the technical specialist, when the rookie came up and begged to join us we told him we did not want him; when he told us how he had a degree in electrical engineering from Moscow state... We decided it would be nice to have some one like that on a scavenging trip."

"Makes sense" thought Vasili, but there was still an unanswered question he had after he met the group in the first place.

"Than why am I here?" He asked aloud, Nikolai looked up as well, he seemed to be bewildered as well. Brewer looked over, he seemed sad for some reason; Nova had tensed up, the butt of the shotgun pressing further into his pit and Sinova once again stopped pacing.

"Do you know who Warlock is?" He asked, his tone indicated more solemnity than questioning. Vasili frowned at the name, then shook his head.

"No... Who?" Sinova shook his head at the words and resumed his pacing.

"No one." He said, Brewer went back to his drink and Nova untensed slightly. Vasili wanted to know who Warlock was and what he wanted but he had the feeling he would get no answers. Nikolai looked like he wanted to ask more but Vasili guessed he had the same feel. After about three more minutes of waiting, Sinova finally finished his pacing, the room was deathly silent now, Nikolai having long stopped his muttering and Brewer having finished the drink. The clapping of Sinova's boots having been the only sound in their ears.

"Well... The situation is not good. Either my contacts have been compromised or tricked because the map only has the hall we got out of and the entrance." Nikolai moaned from the situation for a moment before Sinova continued, glaring at him. "I have found some errors in the map however, it was hastily cropped out from the other parts and was done rather poorly. I do not know the exacts but judging from some of the parts they missed, it looks like we will have to follow this hallway and then eventually find ourselves at the doorway with the crates blocking it that we saw when we got inside." Vasili sighed and nodded, scooping up his pistol from the floor; he stood and dusted himself off before getting ready to go.

Once everyone was ready, masks back on and weapons loaded; the group moved into the hallway. The hall was only a few feet wide and thus only one person could stand shoulder to shoulder. Nova led the way through the hallway with his SPAS 12, Nikolai followed with his shotgun and then Sinova and Brewer respectfully; Vasili took up the back, a post he was deathly afraid of. The halls were not as dark as the rest of the building with the flood lights but he would hardly call them illuminated, the beams of the floodlight only got so much covered and they found themselves in pitch blackness more than once. The worst part was the sound though, so thought Vasili; the only things they heard were their own footsteps and the occasional sounds of metal creaking, with every step he thought he would go mad.

They had turned three corners, covered at least a hundred feet when they finally find themselves at the end of the halls. Vasili wondered what type of bunker this was, one for nuclear defense was normally small and mostly used for storage and living, this one had constant corners and tight corridors; a feature normally only present in a military bunker used for defense against enemies. Yet if it was for defense why did it have the massive area they had only left a few minutes before? It made almost no sense. The thought left his head when they found themselves at the end however, and Vasili prepared for gun shots.

The door in front of them was metal as well, but it was slightly ajar due to the ancient gears not allowing it to close all the way and light came out from under it. The floodlights were not present in this corridor and it contrasted heavily with the rest of the dark and gloomy hallway, from the inside they heard buttons being pressed and some one talking over the radio.

"Fucking hell Black where are you, are you picking up our signals over there? Black god damn it read this place is creepy as hell, where. Are. You." The mans voice was young and erratic, the fear obvious in his voice.

"It is just the walls Lubedev, this place is built thick as hell; it is no surprise our radio's can not penetrate the concrete man." Said a much more firm figure. Nova looked back at them before carefully getting to a knee, ducking his head slightly to see under the door way. Carefully he stood back up, trying his hardest not to make any noise; Nova raised three fingers, Sinova nodding while raising his weapon. Nova looked back to the door, brought his SPAS to bear and quickly tapped a button on the control panel next to the door. The door slid up with a HISS and Nova ran inside.

What happened next went in a blur, there was a large set of consoles sitting in front of a table with a half dozen old fashioned computer monitors with various sets of data on them. In front of the electronics was a mercenary in an office chair, toying with the different buttons and trying to find something wrong with their radio signal; he was unarmed besides a SPAS of his own laying to the side. Leaning on the consoles to his right was another mercenary, he had a gasmask on but his hood was down; his vest was sitting on top of one of the consoles and a black rifle which Vasili identified as an M16 from Vietnam war movies at home in one hand, the other was bent over the dusty old metal. Finally, in the left corner of the room; a single mercenary leaned on the wall, his arms crossed and his M16 in a sling over his shoulder. His hood was down and his mask off.

The one leaning on the console shouted a curse and tried to raise the rifle but got it up in time, Nova's buckshot went flying across the room and slammed into his chest. The man screamed and smacked into the wall, blood splattering the concrete; before he collapsed onto the floor. Nova jogged inside while the man in the office chair shouted NO before trying to dive to his friend from the seat, he never got out of it when the second volley tore his upper shoulders and neck apart. The mercenary toppled from the seat, the chair following him down and his splayed across the floor. The final man did not bother taking out his weapons and raised his hands.

"NO PLEA-" Nova shoved the shotgun forward, the side of it smashing into the unlucky mans face. He stumbled backwards and fell onto his ass, raising his hand. "P-PLEASE! I HAVE A DAUGH-" the words hardly left his throat before Nova unloaded another round of buckshot into his gut, slamming a boot down; he finished him off with yet another shot, smoke spilling out of the barrel along with lead. Vasili's mouth was ajar slightly, such a slow of brutality was foreign to him. Before he thought better, he began speaking against the act,

"The man was begging for mercy Nova, he even said he had a daughter why the hell would you do that." Nova turned to him, he could feel his hate radiating through the room.

"He would not have done different to us, shit head." He said before leaning down to loot him. Nikolai looked between the two and tried to change the subject.

"Hey a SPAS! I could use this and borrow ammo from Nov-"

"No." Nova cut in, taking a medical kit from a backpack the man had. Brewer had to chuckle but Vasili just shook his head, he checked his pistol before sitting on the floor next to the door. Nikolai looked saddened but simply sighed and walked to the consoles instead of fighting an uphill battle with Nova. Nikolai inspected the buttons and then the monitors, tapping a few things and watching their effects. Whilst he was playing with that, Vasili looked around the room some.

To the left of them was a closed doorway, to the right was a larger space filled with old crates and shelves with misc junk covering them. There was no buttons next to the door in here.

"Hey! These things control the facility! I can open all the doors!" Shouted Nikolai. Sinova walked over and patted him on the back, laughing.

"Good! Close all of them besides the one we are going to need to get to the entrance, if these fucks want to leave..." he took a breath.

"They can try and blow their ways out."


	9. The Hole: Part Three

**Authors note: I am sorry for any grammatical inconsistency you may see in The Road, the first chapter was written long ago and I am always changing my style or learning new lessons in grammar. I have gotten a teacher to give me private lessons soon so I hope to make a more steady and easier to read writing style but until that day and the day I decide to go back and edit all of my old chapters, please bear with me.**

**Authors note 2: In a fit of stupidity I uploaded an older version of the chapter by accident. Sorry!**

Hudson always was a good mercenary, he had the ability to forget he was killing people for almost no reason and was fine with almost any amount of money that he was paid with. The zone was always his sort of place too, dangerous and full of interesting and lovely people to eliminate at his contractors behest; if there was a place he loved more than the zone it was Afghanistan where he fought for years. Though the thing he was loved most for was the fact he simply did not care, he was never afraid and truth be told; why should he? He was in a team of over ten highly armed and trained soldiers, the hardest battle he fought was against a bandit gang. Simply no one could phase him. Though that was until about five minutes ago.

His weapon, a beautiful Remington 870, was laying on the floor somewhere in the damned bunker. A finger on his trigger hand was blown off and blood was trickling down his arm from where the other bullet caught him. He was just happy his legs were still good, and so he ran down the corridors. Andrew's and Vintov were right next to him and it reminded Hudson of racing with his little brothers back home, except back then he did not have a team of homicidal ass holes trying to murder him. Vintov suddenly shouted to them,

"GUYS, I AM GOING TO HOLD THEM OFF, GO LOCK THIS PLACE DOWN HUDSON." Hudson jogged for a moment, looking back at his old friend before he ran back down the hallways. Once they were well down the hall, Hudson patted Andrew on the back and broke off to the left, running down a different hallway that led him deeper into the facility. Echoing in the halls, he heard gun shots and Vintov scream in pain. Ignoring the remorse for his old friend, Hudson huffed out a ragged breath and continued his run towards the engineering room of the bunker.

Whoever hired them wanted the guys dead bad, some sort of PDA one of them had found was supposedly the most important thing on the face of the planet. According to the contractor, whoever stole it had to be some sort of mad genius to get away with it and they had to approach with extreme caution. Apparently, they had poured enough money into Black's wallet that he decided it would be appropriate to wait here for a day or two for them to show up for a scavenging job and make sure their ambush was perfect.

_Well Black is a fucking idiot. _He thought to himself as he sprinted, the ham headed commander had thought it appropriate to divide the team into small sections to fan out across a deep dark facility, a facility that was well known for never having a stalker seeing the deepest parts and living for long. He had sent a nice chunk of them down to scout and none of them even came back, the only thing they found that interested them from scouting the more shallow parts of the concrete jungle was a map that showed them the lay out. The only thing useful from _that _was the location of the control room, the engineering room and a second exit.

They had already found the first and the exit was useless as you had to go through the black area, the nickname they gave to the deeper parts of the bunker. Then in yet another flash of brilliance, Black decided to smash enemies with crates rather than shoot them to conserve ammo. Then for the special touch, he never bothered to set their radio's to communicate to the other half of the remaining mercenary company that were on the other side of the massive concrete wall. Effectively cutting off all of their communication.

Hudson was simply patrolling the halls when the lights all shot on, then the group of homicidal maniacs sprinted through a door that mysteriously decided to open and blasted through almost every person they saw. Hendricks tried to surrender only to get the one with the shotgun to blow off his arm and then slit his throat, the transvestite with the scarf proceeded to puke on the floor while the giant with the beard picked up Moscow and slammed him into the wall where his neck was broken nicely. Then the snork on legs decided it would be hilarious to pepper Hudson on full auto when he walked into the room confused which caused the loss of his weapon.

From what he gathered, the insane idiots overpowered Black and his team and then blew through the control room where they proceeded to butcher everyone inside before smashing every button they saw until enough doors opened. The only way to reverse this and lock them off would be to shut _all _of the doors, but he had no way to get to the control room and had no idea what to do with the controls regardless. He did however had a pack of C4 on his belt and the knowledge of where the machines that controlled every single door, light and toilet in the damned hole he was stuck in and basic American instinct told him that when you combine explosives and sensitive machinery the machinery breaks.

By the time he reached the machinery room, the door having been broken in by Black when he discovered there was no way to open it from the controls, he let out a breath of relief. In his head he only counted three minutes from his run, and it would take a few more to get out and get past the few remaining mercenaries left in the base. Carefully, Hudson pulled the block of white death and set it on a pillar that stood in the middle of the room, the electronics built around it. Taking a deep breath, he unrolled the wire from around it and slowly began to back out of the room, now back in the hallway, he stepped to the left and deeper into the facility. Hudson made sure he was many corridors away when he set down the cord and grabbed the detonator that was connected. He made a quick prayer and then pressed down on it with his good arm.

Nothing happened at first when all of a sudden the entire bunker shook, having misjudged the distance, Hudson stumbled backwards from the crash and tried to cover his ears as the horrible sound cracked down the halls. He had only a moment to consider what the hell he just did when the lights flickered and went out, in the distance he heard doors slam down on their own accord. Taking a deep breath, he turned the flashlight on his hood on and laid on the hard concrete floor, wondering how he would survive to live past thirty.

The team was running as hard as they could, Sinova was eager to find his way far from the bunker and the rest could not help but agree with him. Vasili was winded when the stairwell finally came into view, but he could not have been happier, the room with the broken crates was in front of them, behind the boxes was the room they entered. Moonlight was streaming through and Sinova muttered a curse when he saw it, Sinova, Brewer and Nikolai passed through when all of a sudden the ground shook. The room went black and Vasili tripped and fell on his face. Nova stopped for a moment to grab him when suddenly the door slammed down, blocking off whatever curse Sinova was shouting. Then there was the roar of an explosion from the down the halls.

Groaning, Vasili wiped off the dirt after Nova had helped him stand, the irritable stalker's flashlight was now on and Vasili could feel the pure anger resonating off of him. Nova loaded some shells into his shotgun and sighed, slamming his foot against an old box on the floor which smashed into the wall across from them with a bang. Vasili in the mean time walked to the door and pressed up to it, hoping that anyone on the other side could communicate with him but to no avail.

Nova looked over to him and spoke, the anger dripping from his voice.

"Well at least we have each other." He looked Vasili up and down before finishing "Well guess I am dead than."

"Yeah, yeah thanks a ton Nova. Thank you so much. I am so fucking glad to be in such great company A FUCKING LONE IN SOME HAUNTED BUNKER. THANK YOU SO FUCKING MUCH SHIT HE-" his panic attack was cut short by Nova's gloved hand smacking him clean across the face, causing him to stumble over and back into the door way. Vasili's hand went up to the place where he was struck, it beating red under his scarf as he groped the wounded skin. When he tried to get off the door, Nova shoved him back on it with a loud bang. Vasili simply slid down to the floor and pushed his head into his hands, groaning from the exasperation that slowly slid into him and took hold in his gut. Nova had begun to pace, in the distance he still heard the creaking of metal and the occasional sound of more of the bunker collapsing.

With a sigh, Nova walked over and offered him his hand. Vasili stared at it for a moment, the same hand that smacked him was now helping him up.

_Do not look a prize horse in the mouth Vasili. _He thought to himself as he grasped it, allowing Nova to pull him up with deceptively strong arms. Vasili coughed inside the scarf and slowly slide the pistol from its holster, it seemed he would actually have to use it now. Taking his mind off things,Vasili wondered when he could get a new scarf. He had used a water bottle to wash the vomit off when dove behind cover, after that one mercenary turned around and ran straight at them, but it still smelt of acid. His thoughts were broken by Nova.

"Well that detonated somewhere behind us. It also shut down everything and I have a feeling they will not be coming back on. So we will have to double back and find another way out. Basically we are going to stumble through this place and pray we find a broken wall. Look at the bright side though, we only gotta fight ghosts, eh?"

Vasili nodded mournfully at his word before looking back down at the small weapon in his hand. If ever there was a time to see if he could survive in the zone. Now was it.


	10. The Hole: Part Four

When they finally found a way through the rubble, it had at least been an hour since the lights had gone out. After moving back and forth over and over, Nova had realized the ventalation shafts were not caved through and had moved to htem quickly. Nova had no fear of the dark it seemed, he slid right into the shaft as if it was home and scurried through like a rat, when Vasili got him however, he shook from fear. The only sound being the groaning of metal and the smashing of metal as he crawled through.

The shaft seemed to have no end for what felt like an eternity, the darkness going on and on and Nova's small body blocking the small head lamp that the veteran stalker wore perfectly. Vasili was about to say something when suddenly he heard metal groaning beneath him, and saw Nova's head shoot up suddenly.

Nova began to say shit but never finished as the air shaft gave out from under them, Nova dropped down suddenly, his attempt to grab onto the floor failed as he found no purchase; slamming onto his chest, Nova shouted as he slid down into the hall way. Vasili was soon after, his side of the vent tilted foward and sent him face first out of it, everything went dizzy when he slammed face first into a slowly standing Nova's back; throwing both of them painfully down, Nova's life flickered out and bathed both of them in darkness.

Nova harshly shoved him away and got up, rubbing his back and groaning in pain. "Fucking newbie" he muttered as he grabbed his rifle from the ground and smacked it until the flashlight flickered back to life. As Vasili helped himself up and dusted off his jeans, he tried his best to look around. They had fallen in a hallway, there was rubble directly behind them. In front of them, through a doorway was a larger chamber with old and dusty consoles sitting dormant. Nova moved in cautiously, Vasili close on his heels with his pistol drawn.

Nova hardly glanced at the consoles; the screens broken and black, before looking for the exit, as he walked around the room looking for a door Vasili noticed something suspicous. The thick coat of dust on the floor was broken up by several sets of footprints of various age, Vasili quickly motioned Nova over by clapping his hand on one of the consoles twice. Nova spun around with his shotgun to bear before he realized what he was doing. "Flash the light over here, on the floor." He said, pointing, Nova stood there reluctantly for a moment before taking a step foward and lowering the weapon.

When Nova found what they were both pointing at, Vasili took a deep breath. The foot prints were deffinitley not human. Three huge toes with what looked like claws sticking out from each toe, there were at least three sets and they all led out a doorway through the other side of the room. Vasili looked up to the veteran stalker, hoping that he may have an answer for him. Nova looked back and shrugged. "Nothing I ever seen before" he said modestly before walking out the doorway the footsteps led. Vasili followed by closely, complaining in a hushed voice. "For Christ's sake Nova, we aren't alone in here! Those look fresh!"

"Than it will not help anything if we sit in there and cry, would it?" He said mildly, hardly turning his head.

"Nova-"

"What would you suggest than newbie?" Vasili did not have an answer for that and sighed from frustration. The two continued their trek through the facility in silence, the only noise being their boots on the floor and the metal creaks that constantly echoed through the facility. After about ten minutes, Nova started to whistle a song under his mask, the sounds echoed through the hallway and Vasili flinched for a moment. After a moment he recovered enough to listen to the tune he made, Vasili wondered if Nova acting slightly cheery was some way Nova coped with seething hatred and frustration. Or maybe he was afraid? No, that had to be impossible; it was Nova, he could never feel fear. After another minute, Vasili decided to ask him what he was whistling.

"Paradise City" he said before resuming his tune.

"What is that?" Vasili asked, dumbfounded.

"American song" was all he got. Vasili thought that would be a good place to end the conversation, but talking was helping him calm down and so he continued.

"H-how do you know American songs?" He said, awkwardly. Nova shrugged as they walked.

"I know some Americans."

"You know? What do you mea-"

"I know some Americans. Leave it at that kid." Vasili suddenly found himself confused. _In for a penny in for a pound_ he thought to himself before blundering on.

"Where are you even _from _Nova?" Nova's shoulders tensed up slightly at that.

"Well there is a war going on there right now." He said evenly. _Iraq? No he isn't Arabic... is he? _Vasili had never seen his face come to think of it, but there were plenty of places that had wars going on in them.

"Afghanistan? Iraq?" He blurted out before he could think of a better thing to say. Nova sighed and shook his head.

"Been to both, but too far. I ain't telling you now shut your trap already." Vasili looked at the floor, that was probably a wise suggestion he decided and thus they continued on in silence. After what he assumed was nearly an hour, Vasili slammed into Nova's back, the stalker having stopped suddenly. He let out a gasp as he fell backwards, narrowly stopping his fall by grabbing a pipe on the wall. Nova cursed at him in some foreign tongue as he stumbled forward, his rifle firing off as he pulled the trigger by accident. When Vasili reorganized himself, he saw that Nova had forgotten the incident and was in the middle of another room through the door way. This one was large, two large pieces of machinery taking up most of the room and many boxes. Nova was in the center, between two of the boxes, staring up at the ceiling. Or lack of it.

Most of the ceiling was caved in at the center, pieces of concrete, dirt and rocks were spilled across the room. When he started to say something, Nova raised a hand and took out his PDA, he let out a quiet _Whoop!_ And began typing something on it quickly. Suddenly Vasili heard Sinova's voice crackle to life over the PDA.

"_Nova?" Scchhhhh "Nova? Is that you? Damn it Nova where are" Scchhhhhhh "looking for a way in for an hour but" Schhhhhhhhhhhhh "-ack to the bar, decided to try and find hel-" Schhhhhh "no one could do anything" Scchhhhhhhhh "Snitch told" Schhh "stalkers thought we were trying to get artifacts" Schhhh "bandits too" Sccchhhh "half the bloody zone is comi-" Schhhhhhhhhhhhh. _The radio turned to white noise completely and Nova cursed, smacking it and complaining about how this sort of thing always happened to him. Vasili was too busy flipping shit, he began to speak quickly, stumbling over his own words.

"Oh hell no, OH HELL NO WE ARE FUCKING DEAD!" He screamed, "PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COME AND KILL OUR SHIT." Nova spun around and backhanded him again, Vasili stumbled back but in a fit of rage he threw a punch right back after recovering, his fist connecting with Nova's neck and causing the surprised stalker to step back; gasping for air. Vasili had a moment to consider the act of suicide he just committed when suddenly Nova's boot went flying at his temple, he yelped as he was lifted off his feet from the force of the round house kick and slammed into the floor as Nova jumped down onto his chest. He tried to look up when one of Nova's fists connected with his jaw, then his other, and then another. Being able to do nothing but whimper as Nova's legs pinned his arms, he began to tear up from the pain; blood coming up from his broken lip and out of his nose and then mixing with the tears.

Vasili nearly went unconscious when Nova grabbed the sides of his head and shook him for a moment. Finally, he stood up, wiping the blood from his hands as Vasili slowly got up; using the machine for support. Nova grabbed his fallen pistol from the floor and pointed it at him, Vasili suddenly froze and began to whimper when Nova flipped the weapon so that the grip was pointed at his chest. Letting out a sigh of relief, he grabbed it before Nova could change his mind; Nova nodded and dusted himself off.

"Well now that that little episode is over, we can try and find a way to get past the mili-" he stopped as they both heard a loud roar from inside the room. Vasili saw Nova's eyes go wide behind his mask and the stalker cursed loudly, raising his shot gun and sweeping the room around them. Vasili had no idea what was going on, but that roar was horrifying and soon he was pressing up to one of the machines with his pistol raised. Vasili suddenly heard another roar to his left and saw a mutant with long bloody tentacles hanging from its mouth suddenly appear out of thin air. The creature charged straight for Nova who shot wide in a panic and attempted to hop to the side; instead the mutant smashed into him and spun him around, the mutant attempting to grab his arm.

Nova raised his shotgun to bear with one arm and fired at the creature, stumbling back. The mutant took the blast in the shoulder, screamed and then ran off, leaving a trail of blood. Nova pumped the SPAS when Vasili looked over and saw another one of the beings appearing, screaming for Nova to watch out, he raised his weapon and fired for the first time.

Vasili was caught unaware from the kickback of the weapon and his elbows pushed back into his chest, ignoring the recoil, he fired the pistol again and again at the creature. Nova had tried to turn around in time but the creature had dived onto his back and in a fit of strength, Nova kept his knees straight and stumbled around with the creature on his back, its long red tentacles beginning to wrap around the back of its head.

Vasili wondered what to do when suddenly a roar came from the right again and the wounded blood sucker came sprinting at the distracted Nova. Nova had barely enough time to slam the one on his back into the machine before the other one smashed into his side, his shotgun went flying and Nova lurched to his right suddenly; Vasili was amazed that he was still able to stand with the two of them grabbing on, Nova's screams through his mask were very audible however and his panic was clear.

Vasili raised the weapon, deciding to act, and held his breath as he pulled the trigger.

_Click, click, click._ "FUCK," he screamed, raising the weapon up, he ejected the clip and saw no rounds inside. When he lowered the gun and looked over, Nova collapsed from the weight and the two mutants began to feast.

Then he saw the light.

"This is alpha team, this is alpha team. We found an opening." Vasili heard as some ones flashlight shone through the hole in the ceiling, the mutants screeched at the sudden light and ran off in opposite directions, going invisible again. Vasili looked up and saw four stalkers suited up in red were looking down, their rifles aimed squarely at him. Vasili threw his hands into the air, allowing the pistol to drop from his hands and clatter to the ground.

"Loners! Loners! Don't shoot!" All he heard was safeties being clicked off, Vasili tried to think fast about how to convince these men not to kill him or at least why they were here to start. A light bulb suddenly went off inside his head when he remembered Sinova's radio message and he frantically tried to speak before they turned him to Swiss.

"Artifacts! We have artifacts! We h-had a rucksack full of them that the bloodsuckers smacked across the room! I can show you!" This seemed to give them pause, the stalkers all looked at one another when one of them spoke up.

"Free artifacts, I was in the mood for a bonus anyway."

"But Lieutenant Bunchuck will ki-" replied one of the lower ranking men.

"Fuck Lieutenant Bunchdick, he never needs to know." Interrupted a third. The fourth lent his voice to the other two and they convinced the reluctant fourth to come down for the artifacts. Vasili walked to Nova's side and knelt down to meet him eye to eye.

"Nova come on, we gotta go... get up..." he grabbed Nova by his arms and tried to pull only to groans of pain from the veteran stalker.

"My fucking arms." He groaned out before Vasili decided to let him back onto the ground. The stalkers had by now lowered a rope down through the hole and were sliding down the cords, Vasili noted how military like they moved around.

"Show us kid." Said the leader, Vasili scooped up the SPAS and tried to make it look like his own as Nova dropped his head and started to fade out.

"It's over there." He said, pointing to the end of the machines and in front of a door way. He walked over halfway and stopped. "A lot of strange glowing shit, at least five of them was this smooth ball with a cone on it. Jelly something I think." The four exchanged looks, and quickly jogged down the hall; forgetting all risk. The young one was practically crawling trying to find the bag when he yelled over.

"There ain't nothing-" his opportunity to speak was cut when one of the bloodsuckers dived from the darkness and onto his back where it promptly began to tear through the back of his head despite the stalkers screams. The three others raised their rifles when the other bloodsucker dived out from the darkness and tackled the leader to the ground. The two remaining stalkers had no idea what to do when Vasili raised Nova's shotgun to bear. His heart in his throat, he pulled the trigger.

If he thought his pistol had recoil, that quickly changed after he felt the butt of the gun slam into his ribs. One of the stalkers screamed and fired into a wall as he dropped, the buckshot having ripped through his back and lodged into his spine. The other tried to spin around when Vasili pulled the trigger again, the shells tore his arm into pieces and broke his gun. The man fell to the ground in a bloody mess, crying and whimpering for help as he tried to move the gorey remains of his arm.

Vasili's arms were numb, the two men were now silent as the mutants feasted on them happily, the sounds of their feast only occasionally broken the sounds of the dying man.

"_Oh my god what have I done." _He thought as he stared at the remains. "I-it was the-em or us." Muttered Nova who tried to stand up before sliding back down in pain. Vasili ran over and slid down to his side.

"Nova! Nova! You are awake! Quick lets climb the rope, we need to go!" He said, blubbering the words out as if Nova only had a minute to live. Nova simply shook his head.

"I- I can hardly move my arms, I ain't climbing shit." Vasili groaned, from the sounds of Nova's voice it was as if the stalker had given up all hope for survival. He looked for a way out when he realized it was right in front of him.

"_The rope!" _He thought, looking at the cord that dangled from the opening in the roof. He scooped Nova's shotgun from the ground and threw it through the ceiling, hearing the sound of it falling down onto the hard ground. He quickly ran over to Nova and grabbed him by the arms again, and despite his shouts of pain; dragged him over to a spot directly underneath the opening. He took the excess part of the rope and began looping it through Nova's heavy leather belt. Satisfied with the knot he made, he tugged to make sure it was secure and then stepped back.

He got ready to try and climb when he heard the man again.

"Please... please kill me. Don't let them eat me pleeasseeee..." the man then broke down into more sobs and whimpers. Something in his words struck a cord in Vasili, who began to walk over to him without thinking.

He was the farthest away from the bloodsuckers, and was curled into a fetal position; or at least as close to the position as he could be without an arm. Vasili slid the knife from his belt and fell to a knee next to the man, gingerly pushing him onto his back and then sliding the knife through the flesh of his throat. He kept eye contact with him, staring into his scared and tear filled eyes as the blood poured forth from the slit in his neck. The man gurgled for a moment before his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he died.

Knowing full well that he didn't have long before the bloodsuckers turned their attention over, he cut a large bag from the mans belt and then left his body for the mutants, walking over to the cord.

As Vasili began to haggardly climb up the rope, he realized he was crying.


End file.
